Earthlings by Sayaka Murata (translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori)

When “Convenience Store Woman”, Sayaka Murata's first novel to be translated into English was published a couple of years ago it became a cult hit with many enthusiastic fans (including me!) She was already a well-established writer in Japan having published ten books and won multiple prominent literary awards. Now more of her books are being translated into English including “Earthlings” which explores a lot of this author’s familiar themes such as alienation and societal pressures but the story dramatizes them from a surprising new angle and contains more shocking twists. The novel centres around Natsuki, an adolescent girl who develops a strong bond with her cousin Yuu as the pair believe they are aliens who've come from a planet called Popinpobopia. Many years later Natsuki forms an unconventional marriage with a socially awkward man named Tomoya. They refer to society as The Factory wherein they are expected to function as mechanical parts by creating babies and serving specific functions: “Everyone believed in the Factory. Everyone was brainwashed by the Factory and did as they were told.” To escape this fate, the pair travel to Natsuki’s remote family home Akishina where they create a new connection with Yuu and try to establish a way of being outside of social expectations.

Murata’s writing is so compelling in the way she gives voice to outsiders - people who don’t quite fit into mainstream society and feel they must grudgingly obey unwritten social rules in order to survive. It makes it very easy to relate to the author’s central characters who take a weary view of people who do excel at being model citizens. For instance Natsuki observes of her friend Shizuka that “She had always been exemplary in learning to be a woman, truly a straight-A student. It looked excruciatingly tiring.” There’s an implicit humour in this wry view of others, but there’s a distinction between being socially-awkward and a sociopath. Murata’s characters tread that line and this makes her plots so compelling because it feels like at any moment the story might stray into violence, tragedy and madness.

This novel also exposes the hypocrisy of living in a patriarchal society where the authority of a good-looking man is valued over the testimony of an adolescent girl. During Natsuki’s childhood, her handsome teacher Mr Igasaki takes a predatory interest in her. However, nobody believes Natsuki’s account especially not the other women in her life – not even female friends she confides to in her early adulthood. It compounds her feelings of being an outsider and makes her even more mistrustful of following the expectations which are placed upon her.

Many will be shocked by the extremes this novel goes to. The ending of “Earthlings” is really wild and it’s likely to divide the opinions of different readers. Like with the novel “A Little Life”, I think many readers who initially feel sympathetic to the characters and story might become repelled by how far the author goes. In some ways, I found it frustrating as it does feel like Murata sacrifices a consistency with her characters for the sake of shock value. The attitude of Natsuki’s cousin Yuu changes very quickly and her husband Tomoya’s fear of physical contact is abruptly abandoned. But I don’t think this is simply a case of the author prioritizing a rhapsodic plot over the integrity of her characters.

There are a number of different interpretations you could make about the ending. It could be viewed in the realms of pure fantasy where the characters are what they believe they are. It could be seen as a form of joint hysteria. Or you could interpret it as a very intense example of how people will sometimes do terrible things to alienate themselves from society in order to violently free themselves from its rules. When his family try to take charge of him Tomoya desperately seeks a way to do something so shocking he’ll be permanently outcast. Similarly, at the end the trio go so outside the realms of convention they are absconding from any hope of being integrated into normal society again. It could be viewed as a radical form of liberation.

In some ways “Convenience Store Woman” felt like a more restrained and accomplished novel with hints of potential horror – whereas “Earthlings” tips into full-blown terror as its protagonists become lost in fantasy and violence. But it’s fascinating how this novel gives an interesting perspective on feelings of alienation. It’s common to imagine oneself as having been born in the wrong time or place when feeling crushed by expectations which go against one’s instincts. Here the characters really believe themselves to be aliens, but because we’re so entrenched in their perspective it’s so-called conventional people who come to seem like aliens with their banal rituals and rigid expectations. Murata inventively traces the way different outsiders cope by submitting to, rebelling against or escaping from the dominant ideologies of a society they are forced to live in. It makes for a vivid, thrilling and thought-provoking reading experience.

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori)

Before I moved to England I worked at a fast food restaurant for approximately four months. It was an interim period and the only temporary job I could find in my area. Maybe it was the knowledge that I’d soon be immersed in London culture, but the strange thing about working such a repetitive job was I found it oddly comforting. I quickly formed a routine of long shifts interspersed with periods of reading and deep sleep caused by the utter exhaustion of being on my feet all day. Such mindless uniform work where your duties, attire and even your attitude is regulated by a corporate entity that rigorously enforces such conformity allows you to blend in and not have to think. Keiko, the protagonist of Sayaka Murata’s “Convenience Store Woman”, finds her service job at such a chain store equally comforting. Partly this is because she finds human relationships so bewildering. From early childhood she never knew how to act correctly, but the store's strict policies and motivational team spirit provide her a framework in which to more easily conform and blend in. She integrates so well into the store's corporate mentality that after many years working the same part-time service job she feels like her personality is inextricably tied to the store and that she has no identity apart from it. 

It feels like Keiko's methodology is linked to Andy Warhol's philosophy about how “The most beautiful thing in Tokyo is McDonald's. The most beautiful thing in Stockholm is McDonald's. The most beautiful thing in Florence is McDonald's. Peking and Moscow don't have anything beautiful yet.” Warhol used mass production to create art that was the same but different. In a similar way fast food restaurants and convenience store chains are the same but different. Warhol was also someone who felt like an outcast because of his looks and manner. It makes sense that such conformity and acceptance found in an environment with so clear and rigid rules would appear beautiful to both Warhol and Keiko because it subsumes personal inadequacies in favour of the ideals of a corporate entity. Of course, the horrific consequence of subscribing to such a mentality is that everything that is unique about an individual is levelled out.

I found it really interesting how this novel dealt with issues of loneliness in comparison to the recent book “Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine”. Both are about isolated women who live completely for their work and find relationships outside of the duties of their job excruciatingly difficult because they literally don't understand social decorum. But I felt “Convenience Store Woman” deals with this subject matter in a much more interesting way especially in the way Keiko forms a bond with another misfit who comes to work at the convenience store named Shiraha. He's outrageously misogynistic and socially outcast, but he doesn't believe in aligning himself with the goals of the convenience store. Nevertheless, Keiko finds it convenient to form a relationship with him because it will add to the sense she is normal. This really poignantly says something about the degree to which our relationships can be built on convenience rather than authentic feeling.

This relationship also creates an incidental element of humour in the novel. Keiko actually treats the self-concerned Shiraha as an animal that she must feed: “It’s the first time I’ve kept an animal at home, so it feels like having a pet, you see.” The novel “Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine” also revolves around its protagonist forming a relationship with a man, but “Convenience Store Woman” deals with it in a way which felt more realistic because it seems more likely that isolated individuals like this who operate outside of social norms would more naturally create alliances with each other. I also found it darkly funny how Keiko can't tell the difference between her friend's baby and her nephew: “Maybe this particular baby should be more important to me than the others. But so far as I could see, aside from a few minor differences they were all just an animal called baby and looked much the same, just like stray cats all looked much the same.” This is a humorous perspective but it's also tinged with sadness and disturbing in how Keiko feels so estranged from human emotions and the violent ways this disconnect manifested in some incidents early on in her life.

Keiko's philosophy for dealing with her aberrant personality is to align herself totally with the convenience store's mentality and needs. She considers how “A convenience store is a forcibly normalized environment where foreign matter is immediately eliminated.” She finds this consoling, but it's also terrifying in how she feels if she doesn't conform into society she will be expunged and wiped out. At one point some of her colleagues laugh about how it'd be better if Shiraha died because he doesn't contribute to society and Keiko reflects “if I ever became a foreign object, I’d no doubt be eliminated in much the same way.” So this story's extreme example points at many anxieties, fears and challenges that we face in learning how to function in society. This novel enjoyably satirises many aspects of modern corporate culture while also saying something poignant about isolation and the social pressure to conform.